The Enhanced Learning Improvements Through Evidence (ELITE) Scholars Program

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This faculty development project builds on knowledge gained through two cycles of the existing Enhancing Learning Improvements through Evidence (ELITE) Scholars Program, a project developed and implemented through a partnership that includes the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Association for the Advancement of Science BiosciedNet Collaborative. It includes continuation of the current program while instituting features to enable increased participation by faculty from minority serving institutions and community colleges and piloting of new features. These new features include an emphasis on the following components: effective mechanisms of evaluation; effective use of and contribution to the current literature on science education research; sharing results of efforts with the larger community through publication in peer-reviewed journals, presentation at annual meetings of appropriate professional organization or designing a web site to include newly developed materials; and developing leadership skills for those faculty interested in promoting their efforts on a larger scale than just their own courses.ELITE Scholars are participating in: 1) a residency institute on conducting research in student learning; 2) a residency workshop on developing leadership skills for influencing biology education reform; 3) a national conference to exchange research findings in biology education; 4) a writing workshop to develop manuscripts and portfolios in biology education research; and 5) an on-going learning community using synchronous and asynchronous digital communication tools. The emphasis is on the scholarship of teaching and learning, the professional responsibility of faculty to conduct rigorous evaluations of their own teaching practices and to publicly share their findings to develop a community of practice. The intellectual merit is that in addition to introducing the above features the project includes a deliberate effort to gather from these pilot projects information concerning not only the outcomes resulting from faculty attendance; but also information concerning effective components of the workshops and needed changes and then using this information to design future programs. The program is serving as a national model for an effective approach to educational reform in the sciences. The broader impacts are: the number of faculty that are being empowered to effectively communicate effective approaches to profit from and add to the literature on microbiology undergraduate education; and the number of students who will benefit from these efforts. The impact of this program is evident at multiple levels: 1) in their classrooms through change in practice; 2) on the pedagogical practices of the extended educational community through publication of their research and findings; and 3) on the growth of a community of practice through their campus, regional and national mentoring and leadership efforts. By ensuring that faculty leaders derive from a diverse range of institutional settings, ELITE is reaching a broad array of institutions, faculty and students with programs tailored to fit the specific needs of local environments.